I. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an information transmission system for interconnecting world-wide printing plants and printing plant customers for allowing printing plant customers to input to the system printing job requests and for processing the printing job requests to determine which printing machine or machines in which of the world-wide printing plants should be used to perform the requested printing job in an optimum manner.
II. Description of Related Art
There is an increasing trend towards interlinking computers used in individual processing stations of a printing plant having a plurality of offset printing machines. A system is known wherein data necessary for controlling a respective one of the plurality of printing machines of a single printing plant for one print job is transmitted from a central control device, to which the plurality of printing machines in the single printing plant are connected, to a control device assigned to the respective printing machine performing the print job.
By using such a network within a printing plant, it is possible to process data for print jobs which are to be carried out in the future and to optimize the job utilization of a plurality of printing machines contained in the single printing plant.
DE 4 329 886 A1 describes such a control system for a printing plant in which production processes currently. being executed and production processes to be executed in the future can be monitored and planned.
A data management system of this type interconnecting a plurality of printing machines provided within a single printing plant has great potential in terms of efficiency of use of the printing machines in a single printing plant. However, the efficiency is limited at present by the fact that materialization of a print job, that is, the allocation of a print job request and data from the customer to the printing plant and also the distribution of the printed products, is designed in a conventional manner. Thus, it often occurs that a printing plant carries out printing jobs in a manner that achieves efficiency from the point of view of completing a printing job while making the most efficient use of the printing machines and the machine usable time of the printing machines in a single printing plant. However, such a system does not provide an optimum print job allocation method because of the limited nature of available printing machines in a single printing plant. That is, there may be printing machines located outside of a particular printing plant that would provide for more optimum handling and completion of a given printing job.
For example, a printing plant which has the most modern technology for performing pre-preparation, print production and post-printing processing, should never accept a print job that is to be carried out at a lower quality. Instead, the printing plant which has the most modern technology should only accept a print job requiring the highest quality to save time and make the most efficient use of the available technology.
In addition, the route following the production of a printed product, i.e. the further processing of the finished printed product, is also designed in a very conventional way. Thus, printed products are often prepared at a central location, the most efficiently arranged supplier, and then transported to the various post-printing processing destinations. This increases the printing costs because of the increased transport and distribution steps.
In determining a price for a print job, in addition to the material costs, quality requirements and delivery deadlines also play important roles, as do the previously mentioned transport and distribution costs. In the above-described conventional method of allocating print jobs, receiving printing job requests is thus limited to requests entered at a single printing plant and print jobs to be performed at the single printing plant. In addition, the possibility of making comparisons of available printing machines and printing job requirements is also limited to only those machines contained within the single printing plant.
The German publication "Deutscher Drucker," No. 21-22/8.6.95, p. w26 ff, discloses a network connecting a single printing plant and customers of the printing plant. The network is used for the purpose of transmitting image or printing data to and from the customers to the single printing plant.